A Bouquet of Barbed Wire (7 page)

She turned away. ‘No, you really don’t, do you?’ She shrugged, and picked up the paper. ‘Which room have you put us in, by the way?’

‘What? Oh, the spare room.’ The question took him by surprise.

‘Oh. Not my old room.’

‘No. We—thought you’d be more comfortable in the spare room.’

She turned back, wearing the disappointed face of childhood. He had seen it often (No, you can’t have another meringue, Yes, you must clean your teeth after meals) and knew well the sulk that followed it.

‘Oh, what a pity. I love my old room. We could perfectly well have managed in a three quarter bed. No trouble at all.’

He flinched from the picture she was conjuring up. ‘Well, your mother thought the spare room would be better.’

‘Oh,
Mummy.’
A tiny smile, just this side of mockery. ‘I bet she didn’t. I’m not big yet or anything. In fact it doesn’t show at all yet, does it?’

‘No.’

‘Can’t we swap? I hate twin beds.’

Prue, it’s all arranged …’

‘Oh, I see. You’re putting your foot down. Well, the spare room it is then. I
guess
we can manage in one of the beds if we try.’

* * *

In the evening a concert on television. Submerged by the music, trying to pretend that the undercurrents simply don’t exist. My daughter quiet and tense, withdrawn in her chair, curled up with her feet under her. Somewhere inside her, beneath the absurd heap of clothes, that baby floats. His baby. Little arrogant go-getting runt in the chair next to her, impregnating her, marrying her, holding a gun to our heads, when she should have had the best and all the time in the world to find it. For what else was she born, for what else did we make her, Cassie and I?

He’s holding her hand. If I didn’t love her I wouldn’t care that she’s lowered herself to this. But what a solution. Is this the answer, to stop loving your children so that whatever they do it cannot hurt you, because you don’t care? Her choices are over, and they’d hardly begun. She’s only nineteen and her life is fixed, a long corridor, interminable, with no doors opening off it. Whither he goeth, she goes. He’ll drag her down and down, to whatever level he chooses, and I am powerless to help. There is nothing more I can do for her. I am reduced to buying her lunch at the Mirabelle and paying for a lease on her flat so that she can live in comfort with
him
. I can no longer guide her, advise her or help her: she is out of my sphere of influence. All her potential, all that bright shiny talent we nurtured so happily, the ponies and the music and the fun, all sunk into cooking his meals and bringing up his child. She could have had anyone and she chose to have him.

Prue said to Gavin, ‘Isn’t it lovely?’

‘Yeah, great.’

* * *

‘They put us in here on purpose.’

‘What?’ Gavin was pulling his shirt over his head.

‘They wouldn’t let us have my old room. Don’t you think that was mean?’

‘I don’t see that it matters.’ Gavin unbuckled his belt and slid out of his trousers.

‘But I love my old room.’

‘So? You’ve slept in it often enough. What’s one night more or less?’

Prue looked at him. ‘But I wanted to sleep there with
you.’
She put her arms round him. ‘Oh, aren’t you delicious, all dark and hairy in your pants. Take them off.’

‘Well, that is what I had in mind, just give me some space.’ He tugged them off and ‘threw them in a corner. ‘Which bed do you want?’

‘Whichever you’re having.’

‘Oh, honey, come on, not again.’

‘What d’you mean, not again?’

‘Like this morning we nearly missed the train.’

‘I know, wasn’t it fun?’

‘Yeah, it was great. And tomorrow maybe. Only right now I’m pooped.’

She switched on mock-misery. ‘You’re bored with me already. Oh! How shall I bear it? My lord and master wearies of me. Oh!’

‘Cut it out, honey. I’m tired.’

‘But you’ve done nothing all day.’

‘Yeah, I know. But doing nothing down here beats a whole week at school.’ He got into bed. ‘Put the light out, huh?’

Prue stood at the window in the dark. She said presently.
‘Even the garden doesn’t look right from here. I hate this room. It’s for guests.’

‘We
are
guests. Go to bed.’

Pale moonlight gleamed on her newly-brown skin as she crossed the room. ‘All right, since you insist. Move over.’

‘Oh, Christ.’

‘Well, that’s a nice welcome.’ But her fingers had reached him. ‘Oh ho. Who said he was tired?’

‘Reflex action.’

‘Oh yes. That’s quite a reflex you’ve got.’

They grappled in silence. Presently he said, ‘Well, you asked for it.’

‘Oh yes. Please yes.’

‘Slave?’

‘Yes. Anything you say.’ And much later, drowning, gasping for breath, ‘Oh please more. Really hurt me this time.’

* * *

‘There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?’ Cassie said when they were undressing.

‘What?’ He despised himself for affecting not to understand but the pretence was automatic.

‘Our day
en famille.’
She spoke tolerantly, humouring him, he felt, which enraged him.

‘No, it was
great.’
(In the spare room, two walls away, Prue slept with Gavin.)

Cassie began to laugh, then, seeing his face, stopped. ‘Oh, darling, it doesn’t
matter
how he talks, does it? Really? He can’t help it.’

‘And the clothes. And the hair. He can’t help that either?’ (It would have been intolerable to have them next door.)

Cassie shrugged helplessly. ‘He’s just young. They’re all like that now. It’s just a fad. Part of being young. We all did it once, more or less. We had our funny fashions and our special slang.’

‘Oh yes?’ He got into his pyjamas, unpleasantly conscious of looking and sounding sulky. If they had been next door, in Prue’s old room, he would have been listening, and trying not to hear.

‘Well, didn’t we? Don’t you remember?’

What did she mean, that he was too old to remember? Was she taking sides with them against him? His last citadel fallen and the world upside down. That was bad enough, but it was the sense of ridicule that was hardest of all to bear, and that came as much from within him as from those around him. I am making myself a laughing-stock, he thought, behaving like a jealous old man because it’s all over for me and for them it’s still
happening
or whatever they call it. The world belongs to the young and you’re a fool if you resent it. They’re the new élite. You’re a narrow-minded sentimental old fool if you object to your daughter being knocked up by a long-haired layabout.

‘Anyway,’ Cassie went on, ‘what was all that about France?’

‘Oh.’ He got into bed and looked defensively round for a book. ‘We were cordially invited to spend our summer holidays with them in the South of France.’

‘And you said we couldn’t go.’

‘Well, naturally.’

‘Why?’

He was truly taken aback. Perhaps the passages in books he had summarily rejected in which people said ‘What do you mean, why?’ and ‘Are you seriously suggesting …’ in outraged tones, were not so wide of the mark. The highbrow novel might endeavour to reject cliché, but cliché was the humiliating stuff of real life. He surrendered to it and allowed himself to say, ‘I should have thought that was obvious.’

Cassie sat on the edge of the bed in her nightdress and said seriously, ‘I don’t see why. It might have been very nice.’

‘Nice!’ He could not prevent himself from echoing her. (Were they asleep?)

‘Well, we won’t get anywhere by ignoring them, will we? We might all have got along quite well in the sun. You
like
the South of France, you might even get to like Gavin in a holiday atmosphere.’

Out it came, too much, too bitter, but unstoppable. ‘Why should I, when you obviously like him enough for both of us?’

Cassie gave him a long, thoughtful look which he very much resented. ‘Not particularly. I mean I don’t like him or dislike him. I just accept him and I think it would be a lot better for you, as well as everyone else, if you could too. There’s simply no point in keeping up a feud when he’s one of the family. If he was … Dracula we’d have to accept him now or risk alienating Prue. And neither of us wants to do that.’ She got into bed. ‘At least if he asked us to join them on holiday
he’s
making an effort, isn’t he? It can hardly be his idea of fun. When did we ever ask my parents to go away with us?’

Manson lay down and switched out the light on his side of the bed. ‘Now you’re saying he wanted us to refuse. So what would have been the point of accepting?’

Cassie sighed. ‘I’m simply pointing out that he was making a peace move which I think was rather nice of him.’

‘Only he didn’t want to be taken up on it.’

‘Well, probably not, but—’

‘Then I did him a favour. He had all the kudos of making the offer and none of the inconvenience of having it accepted. Ideal.’

Cassie switched out her light. ‘All right, we won’t talk about it any more. Prue looks very well, don’t you think?’

This was too much for Manson. ‘She won’t much longer if he has his way.’

‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘He wants her to work in an office all through July to earn the fare for the holiday.’

‘Well?’

‘You find that quite acceptable, do you?’

‘Why, won’t he be working too?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, then.’

‘You don’t see any difference?’

‘Darling, do try to be rational. She’s only three months pregnant. Lots of women work up to six or seven months. It’s perfectly all right so long as she takes it easy and gets enough rest.’

‘You never worked when you were pregnant.’

She squeezed his shoulder. ‘I was lucky, I didn’t have to. But I would have done if we’d needed the money.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t have let you.’

‘I do love it when you sound masterful. It makes me feel young again.’

‘Now you’re changing the subject.’ He hated himself for not being able to respond to the warmth in her voice. He would have liked nothing better than to make love to her and by so doing forget the whole ghastly mess, but he was prevented as surely as if they were in different rooms.

‘Oh.’ He heard her registering the rebuff. ‘Well, times have changed, I suppose. The working wife is taken for granted now, even the pregnant working wife. When we were young it was rather unusual.’

Everything went back to age. It was as if he was on some hideous roundabout, perpetually passing the same point, unable to jump off. He lay in the dark and let the words revolve in his mind: too old, times have changed, they’re young, accept the inevitable, things are different now, on and on, digging an endless division. Not a family any more but two generations at war. How abruptly it happened.

Cassie said gently, ‘I’m sorry you’re taking it so hard.’

‘Yes, I’m making a fool of myself, aren’t I?’ The bitterness shocked him, yet he could not control it.

‘No, I don’t mean that and you know I don’t. It’s just sad.’

‘Yes, it’s pathetic that I haven’t come to terms with it.’

She didn’t rise to that. Instead she said slowly and distantly as if to herself, ‘It’s different for men, I suppose. There’s no dividing line. Once I accepted that I could never have another baby, that all that was over for me, I also accepted that nothing would be so sad ever again. In a way Prue’s doing it for me, having the baby. It does make me envious, up to a point, but happy as well. I don’t feel so much a grandmother as a sort of proxy mother-to-be.’

He said, wondering, ‘Why did you never tell me you felt like that?’

‘There wasn’t much point. You can’t fight the menopause.’ It was like her to use the correct term. ‘You didn’t want any more children after the boys were born, and it wouldn’t have mattered how many we’d had, I’d still have felt the same, I think. It isn’t the actual child you want, in the end, just the knowledge that you’re capable of having one.’

He put his arm round her. Presently, more out of proximity and tenderness than actual desire, they began to make love.

‘N
OW IS
there anything you’d like to ask me?’

Manson always gave them this opportunity after he finished his dissertation on publishing in general and the firm of Eliot and Manson in particular. Sarah Francis had listened attentively with a polite expression, not a smile, not a blank. Her eyes were dark though he could not tell what colour, and heavily made up, her hair blonde; dyed, he presumed. She had very golden skin, either from a holiday or make-up, and pale lips, and her hair was tied back severely, like Prue’s. Although it was June she wore, instead of a summer dress, a grey linen suit and white blouse—to look the part, he supposed. The only concessions to summer were the open neck and the short sleeves. She wore black patent sling-back shoes and carried a huge black patent handbag.

He did not normally study anyone in such detail but he had been talking for about twenty minutes and had nowhere else to look. Against his will he found himself contrasting the girl’s neat appearance with the clothes Prue had worn at the weekend—to keep Gavin company, he assumed. The weekend still rankled: on Sunday morning he had been forced to play chess with Gavin, while Prue and her mother prepared lunch, and Gavin had let him win. He was sure it had not been a genuine victory: Gavin, whatever else, was not stupid and not a beginner, and he had made the kind of mistakes that only a very stupid beginner could make. The condescension had been harder to take than defeat. Then after lunch,
while they were still browsing through the Sunday papers Prue had come up with some thin story, some reason for returning to London which she thought she had mentioned already, hadn’t she? and they left before tea.

‘Yes,’ Sarah Francis said. ‘I’d like to ask you when I can start.’

He laughed, pleasantly jolted out of his reverie. He had not expected such a direct approach.

She went on quickly, ‘Oh, I know you can’t answer that, you haven’t even offered me the job yet, and you’ve probably got dozens of other people to interview. But that’s really all I want to know. It all sounds super and I had a long chat with Miss Bradley after she gave me my test and she’s been so happy here, I’m sure I would be too.’